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Bi; Pres. Andrew S. Draper 

Of the UniVersitt; of Illinois. 



^erry ^a.son Compa.ny, 

'Publishers, 

'Tinsion, cMa.ssachuseUs* 



Ideal Public Schools 

{^Reprinted from Tlie Youth's Companion, Feb. 14, /go/.] 




TDOYS and girls hardly understand the pui- 
^-^ poses of the public schools. They think 
very little about the principles upon which our 
great school system, in which there are lialf a 
million of teachers and fifteen millions of pupils, 
and which costs two hundi-ed million dollars each 
year, is maintained. They do not trouble them- 
selves over the ways by which the system is to 
accomplish its pmposes and justify all it costs! 
Too many parents give httle thought to thfe< 
matter. 

The impression of the people who do not think 
very hard about it is that the schools are to teach 
pupils to read and write, and use nmnbers, and 
know something about birds and flowers, and 
countries and peoples, and the like. The schools 
are to do this ; but they are weak indeed and they 
are not worth what they cost unless they do a 
great deal more. 

All of our states make laws requiring the 
people to maintain sclux)ls for all the cliildren. 
Nearly all the people would do this without any 
law. 1'he people of each state make the laws in 
order that if there are any who do not want to 
support scIkjoIs, they will be compelled to do so. 
In this way, throughout the coimtrj-, a school 



is sure to be within reach of everj' home. 
Nearly all of the cities and towns have 
estabhshed high schools, and many of 
the states have set up great state universi- 
ties. All this is to build up self-respecting 
chamcter and develop sound views of life, 
to ti-am up good citizens and make the 
states and the republic safe ; it is not only 
to give every child an equal chance with 
everj' other, but to impel every one to make 
the most of his chance. 

That is the ideal pui-pose of the schools. 
To come near attammg it, the school nmst 
come near being ideal. We are very likely 
to judge of a school by the looks of the 
schoolhouse. We may make a mistake, 
but we are verj^ likely to be right. 

If we see a building that is attmctive, 

with trees about it, and with some green 

sod and flower-beds m the smmner-time, 

and with a whole and bright American flag 

floating over it, we shall be likely to find 

that things are about as they should be mside. 

If the building looks ugly and the grounds are 

mikempt and the flag ragged, we sliall be Ukely 

to find that the schoolliouse is dii'ty and unliealth- 

ful. We shall also be hkely to find that the 

teacher is lazy and the pupils listless, and the 

work of little account. 

Importance of **Good Looks." 

THERE may be eases in which this is not so. 
Clothes do not make the man, it is tnie, but 
in nonnal business conditions clothes indicate the 
quahties of the man. A business man who is 
cleanly and neatly dressed is probably a much 
better and stronger man tlian one who looks 
sliabby, because the better man will usually look 
well. So a rickety and particularly a dirty 
schoolliouse is almost as ceitiiin pr(X)f of a weak 
school, as a four-days'-old beaiti, a dirty shirt 
and baggy trousers are commonly indiaitive of a 
cheap kind of business man. People who know 
the value of a good school wiU provide a gocnl 
home for it, and in tuni the good home will help 
the sch(K)l to glow better. 
A true teadier, well sustained, Avill m:'' " m 



IN KX 






IDEAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



ideal school; but true teachers are few, or, at 
least, they seem few because so many people 
who are really unable to teach well want to 
work at it for the pay, and are allowed to do so. 
Here is the greatest trouble in building up ideal 
schools. 

The Ideal Teacher. 

A'N ideal teacher must first of aU be an ideal 
man or woman. It is not enough that a 
teacher does not lie or swear or cheat. There are 
plenty of people trjing to teach school who do 
not do any of those things, and yet they do yevy 
little teaching. No one teaches weU unless he 
has the respect of pupils, and he cannot have that 
unless he is a self-respecting character. If he 
is this, he wiU be neat in person, regular in his 
mode of life, honorable in his treatment of others, 
and sincere in his purpose to make the most 
of himself and do the most he can for others. 

An efficient teacher will be weU-infonned. 
He win know what has occurred m the world, 
and what is happening every day. If he knows 
only a little about numbers and geography and 
the like, and does httle but go over the routine of 
these things year after year, he wiU shrivel up 
and ought to blow away. He must read the 
newspapers and magazines and the best books, 
and he must travel and see things if he would 
be of use to a school. 

A teacher must not only know all about what 
he tries to teach, but he must know how to teach. 
He must have studied the minds of children, and 
the best ways of gaining their interest and of 
leading them to act for themselves. A true 
teacher wiU like children, not only the inordi- 
nately good ones, who too often die young, but 
the other and more conmion kind, who are wilful 
and perhaps ugly and shirk work if they can, 
but who generally grow up and become verj^ 
decent men and women, after aU. 

Sympathy with Play. 

A TEACHER must enter into the life, of 
pupils, their work and theh sports. One 
who only tolerates play because he cannot help 
it ought, to be relegated to the retired list of the 
"Army of Martyrs," as teachers are sometimes 
called. He would have no claim, however, to 
a pension, for he has never been a good soldier in 
that army. 

^ ^me teacher wiU be master of the school, 



and so undisputed a master that he wiU not be 
afraid to let pupils have all the freedom they Mke 
so long as it does not interfere with the work of 
the school. Children are not simpletons. They 
dishke nik ^ '^nd hate watchers and keepers, but 
they laugh at t^^^chers who are "easy" or "soft." 
They respect and love manly men and womanly 
women. 

The true test of a school is the extent to which 
the pupils do things for themselves because they 
like to do them. The amoimt of work each child 
does, the length of the com-se or the nmiiber of 
studies he takes, is not of so nmeh matter as 
that he shall get interested in some things and do 
them for himself. 

The greater number of children never become 
enthusiastic over anj-thing. They lead only 
ordinary lives. Nothing quickens theh souls or 
stirs them to real, high-minded effort. A teacher 
who can wake a child up and get him to working 
for something is a real teacher. Such a teacher 
will have learned that this cannot be accomplished 
by terrorizing the child, or by trying to shape the 
life of the child just like his own life. The work 
of the school must be of a kind which the child 
can like to do. If the child enjoys one kind of 
work better than another, he should be encom-aged 
most in the kind he likes best. Let him leam to 
hke something; let him accomphsh something, 
and in a little time he will like other and greater 
things. 

Problems of Graded Schools. 

THE necessity of the close grading and the 
separation of pupUs into different rooms 
in the large schools has certain disadvantages. 
When the younger pupils mingled with the older 
ones and heard them recite, they derived an 
advantage from it. They saw what was ahead 
of them, and often they were roused by it. 

The fact that in the graded schools the grade 
above is the main judge of the work in the grade 
below, and that the gxeatest desire of the pupil is 
to pass into the next grade, has disadvantages as 
weU as advantages. An ideal teacher wiU laiow 
what the disadvantages are and make them as 
small as possible. He will do genuine and honest 
work without too much reference to the teacher 
in the next room. Thoughtful people who build 
schooUiouses will put an assembly-room into every 
house, where aU may come together and get the 
good which comes from the general meeting. It 
seems practically impossible to do for the child 




SCHOOL 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 483 989 6 



wlmt the schools are set to do, unless the pupils 
of diifereht ages inteniiingle. 

Probably the greatest danger to the public 
school system is tliat people who are able to 
send their childi-en to private school *i become 
dissatisfied with the public schooji^nd withdraw 
their children and their support from them. 
They find, in some eases, that the public school- 
houses are untidy or u*\Iiealthful, or that the 
public school teacher-'" are too uncultivated for 
association with their children, or are unable to 
interest and instruct them. If this should become 
true to any grea* extent, it would be a very serious 
hurt to the pubhc schools, because the strongest 
point about them is tliat they are common to all, 
to the well-to-do and the rich as well as to the 
poor. American people in comfortable circum- 
stances will not pay twice for the education of 
then chikh'en without feeling much annoyed at 
+he necessity, and they show less coui-age than 
they ought to show if they do not make a very 
vehement and effectual protest. 

This trouble is to be rigidly guarded agamst. 
A schooUiouse which, is not neat enough and 
healtliful enough for a rich man's child is not 
fit for a poor man's child. A teacher whose per- 
sonal appearance or whose ways are unpleasant 
or hm'tful to a child from the home of cultivatal 
people is unfit to have cliarge of a child from 
any home. A teacher who cannot teach well-bred 
diildren is an offense to aU children. The public 
schools are bound to be the best and most effi- 
cient there are, weU worthy of all the homes they 
assume to serve. 

Schools Steadily Improving. 

TT must not be assumed from what lias been 
■*• said tliat the writer thinks tliat the Ameri- 
can public schools are poor, or tliat the teachers 
«iimot teach. The public schools are, in general, 
better than they ever were before. The people 
are more intelligent ; the sUmdards are steadily 
advancing; the sch(X)ls must stetulily improve. 
The teaching force in our school system is far 
from ideal, but it is generally conscientious. 
The teachers advance wherever the conditions 
encourage them to do so. Where the people 



manage the schools upon principles which 
approach the ideal, the teachers improve in spirit 
and accmnulate teaching power with great 
rapidity. 

Ideal schools wiU result from the intelligence 
and the spirit of the people. People are not 
likely to have good schools miless they know the 
difference between good schools and poor ones. 
Even then they are not likely to liave good 
schools unless they are veiy earnest about it. 
Wherever the people allow mere self-seekers to 
become members of school boards, and let them 
appoint and promote teachers through favoritism, 
and in defiance of the advice of experienced 
professional supermtendents, the schools wiU be 
weak. 

The Responsibility of Parents. 

TF the people will generate enough civic energj' 
•*■ to secure laws which will enable them to 
protect their children against incompetents, and 
true teachers against association and competition 
with the unworthy ; if they wiU remember that 
laws do not execute themselves, but require 
executors who are truly ambitious for the best 
that can be obtained; then the schools wiU be 
likely to approach the ideal. 

Wherever a teacher's tenure of position does 
not depend upon a true spirit and upon increasing 
expertness in teaching, there are likely to be 
poor schools. In such cases there wiU be no 
standards, and the teaching will be reckless and 
unscientific. Jealousies wiU prevail among the 
teachers. It will be necessaiy to make rales 
covering almost every act to prevent the so-called 
teiichers from doing harm. These rales w ill keep 
those who might be trae teacliers from doing 
good. 

Wherever school boards wiU secure a aipable 
and just superintendent, and cooperate with him 
in a policy which will give eveiy teaclier the 
right to know tliat a higher position and better 
pay in the schools will smely reward a genial 
and steiwly spirit, and tliat increasing respect 
in society will as surely follow patience and 
thoroughness in work, the schools will certainly 
advance towaid the best ideiils. 



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Hollinger Corp. 
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